82 in as little as three or four years. The diplomat confesses he replied by saying that three or four years did seem a remarkably short time in which to com- plete "so Olympian a political process." Gradually, people began to understand that the process couldn't be carried out in stages-the East and West German systems were too different. A stately tempo would have given the two soci- eties time in which to recoil from each other; in fact, the instant exuberance of the West Germans yielded swiftly to unhappiness about the social and finan- cial costs of union with their less privi- leged brethren. Kohl made a conscious decision to accelerate the process. The deed, he knew, had to be done quickly if it was to be done at all. Washington was as ready to move as Kohl. Last October, when Gorbachev declined to call in Soviet troops to put down East Germany's rebellion, vari- ous State Department people foresaw the tension that ensued. Bush and Ba- ker called the shots. They already knew, of course, that the Federal Re- public was the most important Europe- an ally. A larger Germany would be even more important, and must, above all else, be kept inside NATO. Each of Bonn's chief allies was annoyed about the absence of consultation before Kohl's November unification speech, but only Washington bit its lip and decided to go along with Kohl-and, indeed, run interference for him in Moscow. This decision fetched Bush and Baker glowing tributes from Bonn and reproaches from London. Paris felt no less reproachful but complained less. "If you are Jim Ba- ker, you see a united Germany as a winner- as different from every- one else," a British diplomat says. "NATO is all there is for America, but people say it must be changed into a more political place, and no one knows how to do that. So the special relation- ship with Germany, faute de mieux, is the alluring option." Less than two weeks after Kohl's speech, Baker was in Berlin and gave one himself, in which he expressed American support for unification, not- ing, however, that it "should occur in the context of Germany's continued commitment to NATO and an increas- ingly integrated European Communi- ty." Gradually, it became clear that Bush and Baker had got it right, whereas Paris and London had got it wrong. The critics of Bush and Baker in those places observed that it was a lot easier for America, a superpower and far removed from Germany, to react as it had than for old enemies and neighbors of Germany. Washington reckoned that Gor- bachev n1ight be able to accept unifica- tion in the short run but would be unable to do so if, as was expected, his political position weakened. But Bush and Baker also stood accused, by some American diplomats as well as Euro- pean ones, of running a foreign policy that was centered too heavily on Gor- bachev. Never bind your policy to the fortunes of one regime or ruler, diplo- mats say. Bush and Baker-men of usually moderate temper-struck many of them as having in a few months swung from one extreme to the other, from Gorbyphobia to Gorbyphilia. Bush and Baker's goal was the removal of Soviet military power from Central Europe, and for that they needed Gorbachev, the Soviet leader best posi- tioned to make deals, and keen to do so. "Get the hay in the barn while you can" is how Kohl has alluded to his need for Gorbachev's help on unifica- tion. And Kohl's own survival is the preëminent goal of the Bush Administration-it and Gorbachev's survival. Like Kohl, Bush and Baker spotted opportunity in Europe's political up- heaval, provided that it became a process and they managed the process. Larger questions, such as what the process should lead to, would be deferred. In February, at a NATO ministerial meeting in Ottawa, Baker go.t agreement to launch the so-called two-pIus-four talks, involving West and East Germa- ny and the four victors of the Second World War-Britain, France, the So- viet Union, and the United States. Those talks, an artful invention of Baker's entourage, enabled ministers and diplomats to begin disposing one by one of various obstacles to unifica- tion-of which the first and foremost, of course, was Moscow's resistance to the idea. The combination of two-plus- four meetings, held at frequent inter- t8 G1v AUGUST 27 1990 vals, and bilateral meetings between Western leaders-Kohl and Genscher especially-and their Soviet opposite numbers became the central mechanism for smoothing the rough edges of uni- fication. The message to Gorbachev, a senior American official says, was "Do what the rest of us are doing about Germany or isolate yourself. You want to be part of Europe, and that is O.K. But it will happen on our terms or not at all. You can get off on the right foot or the wrong foot with the new Ger- many. You have a choice, but the clock is ticking, and we are waiting for you to find your bottom line." There was no sign of Gorbachev's bottom line when he and Bush met at the summit conference in Washington in late May, but his problems with a unified Germany's membership in NATO were forcibly stated. Moreover, while the Washington-Bonn axis was flourishing, each place was having problems with Paris. Mitterrand had signalled his unhappiness to Kohl in mid-March-on the eve of elections in East Germany to create a democratic government that would manage the arrangements for unification. On March 14th, four days before the elec- tions, Mitterrand received Oskar La- fontaine, who, as a leader of the Social Democratic Party (S.P.D.), West Germany's largest, would be trying to displace Kohl as Chancellor in the December federal elections. The S.P .D. is traditionally the largest party in the eastern part of Germany, too, and was favored to win the March elections. But the East Germans sur- prised everyone, probably including themsel ves, by electing Christian Dem- 0crats, Kohl's political kinsmen. It was a major political event, partly because Kohl now seemed to be about nine feet tall politically. Mitterrand's calculated affront had backfired. Mitterrand had been having much the better of an argument with Kohl over Kohl's reluctance to upset his party's right wing by agreeing to a treaty that would guarantee Poland's western border after reunification. Kohl had privately assured Bush that he would yield on the matter after the political ground at home had been pre- pared, but he waited until late spring- a good deal longer than he had to, thereby inviting widespread concern about whether he and those around him grasped the sensitivity of the issue and the delicacy of their position.